pith. sign in

arxiv: cond-mat/0008036 · v1 · submitted 2000-08-02 · ❄️ cond-mat

Droplet shapes on structured substrates and conformal invariance

classification ❄️ cond-mat
keywords dropletconformalforcesinvariancescalingshapeshapeswedge
0
0 comments X
read the original abstract

We consider the finite-size scaling of equilibrium droplet shapes for fluid adsorption (at bulk two-phase co-existence) on heterogeneous substrates and also in wedge geometries in which only a finite domain $\Lambda_{A}$ of the substrate is completely wet. For three-dimensional systems with short-ranged forces we use renormalization group ideas to establish that both the shape of the droplet height and the height-height correlations can be understood from the conformal invariance of an appropriate operator. This allows us to predict the explicit scaling form of the droplet height for a number of different domain shapes. For systems with long-ranged forces, conformal invariance is not obeyed but the droplet shape is still shown to exhibit strong scaling behaviour. We argue that droplet formation in heterogeneous wedge geometries also shows a number of different scaling regimes depending on the range of the forces. The conformal invariance of the wedge droplet shape for short-ranged forces is shown explicitly.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.